


Papaya

by shyday



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Innuendo, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 19:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2479265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shyday/pseuds/shyday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reddington's not at his best. Will Keen take advantage?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Papaya

**Author's Note:**

> I truly didn’t intend to do this again - certainly not so soon after the first one - but I admit to being caught up in the almost totally unfamiliar addiction of writing for a current fandom. (I mostly play with already cancelled shows, you see, and I don’t think the original Browncoats had the numbers of you lot. The traffic to the other story on ff.net in the last week alone surpasses what some of my fics have seen in their entire lifetimes.) Honestly though, this bit of fluff came about simply because I had a headache, and Reddington drew the short straw of my cranky mood. Set early Season2 if it has to be set anywhere, with mentions of events in Season1.
> 
>  
> 
> I make no money, because they don’t belong to me.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Ten minutes after they cuff their target, Reddington collapses. True to form, he manages to do it without anyone noticing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_I’m not in the mood for this…_

 

It’s been a long week, and any relaxation she might have been starting to feel is instantly erased when she exits the house to see him pacing by the decoy cable van. She wonders what he’s doing here. He never comes by the Post Office anymore, seems to prefer calling in any help rather than meet face to face. And it hasn’t escaped her notice that lately it’s _Agent Keen_ over _Lizzie_ more often than not. Their meeting a few days ago when he’d given her this lead was the first time she’d talked to him at all in months.

 

She isn’t really sure how she feels about this. Work has kept her busy enough that she’s been able to avoid giving it too much thought.

 

She doesn’t want to play his games tonight, just wants to get their prisoner back and start on the paperwork. She doesn’t work for him. She’s tired of living on his schedule. He thinks he can fly incommunicado until he needs something, then drop in unannounced and expect them to abandon whatever they’re doing. Keen has no doubt that this case they’ve just closed is another step on his personal agenda, even if she doesn’t see how it connects yet.

 

But closed it is. She can’t guess at what it is he might want.

 

She grabs Ressler’s arm as he passes, snagging him out of the flow of law enforcement now moving in and out of the house. “What’s Reddington doing here?”

 

Ressler glances over his shoulder toward the shape by the van. He shrugs. “Hell if I know. He got out of a cab about twenty minutes ago, starting banging on the door. We had to pull him in before he blew our cover.”

 

“What?” She’d been staring down their suspect over an expensive glass coffee table, hadn’t had a clue that any of this was going on. “What did he say?”

 

“Not much. He was too busy being insulting about how we were running things. Seemed convinced there was something we were missing. I told him we had everything under control, but you know Reddington. Always has to be the smartest one in the room.”

 

“Yeah.” Reddington’s watching her from the far sidewalk. He’s made no move to cross the street.

 

“He can’t keep doing that shit. If he’d shown up any earlier, we would’ve been made for sure.”

 

She glares at Ressler, annoyed at this implication that she’s Reddington’s keeper. Even if she knows it’s true.

 

In the eyes of the FBI, anyway. “I’ll talk to him.”

 

“Get him out of here, Keen. He sounds like crap.” Ressler’s tone is decidedly unsympathetic, and he drags his sleeve across his nose in an unconscious gesture. “I swear, if he gave me some tropical disease…”

 

“I’m sure you’re fine,” she says without thinking, her eyes now trying to get a better focus on the shadowed form. She scans the street, but she doesn’t see Dembe anywhere. “You said he came alone?” But Ressler’s already gone, swallowed up by the house and the rest of the night’s duties.

 

Keen sighs, tension digging thick fingers into the muscles of her neck. She walks down the path, the quiet neighborhood awake now with the buzzing of too many bodies and the mute flashing of lights. The street, lifeless only moments ago, is filled with haphazardly parked cars; with no need to keep out of sight any longer, everyone in the operation has suddenly congregated here. She’s almost across the manicured front lawn when she’s stopped by a member of the local force, a kid with stuttering questions and little confidence.

 

It already seems like forever since she’s felt that young and green.

 

By the time she’s pointed him in the direction of someone else, she looks up to find Reddington has gone. She stares at the spot where he’d been standing, as if she expects him to suddenly reappear. She’s got no desire to indulge him in a game of hide-and-seek.

 

_Definitely not in the mood for this._

 

Keen maneuvers around the hood of an unmarked car, crossing the street to get to their van. The double back doors are open, but she sees only Amar when she ducks around one to look inside. He glances up, smiles.

 

“Hey. Good job in there.”

 

“Thanks.” It’s distracted; she feels inexplicably unsettled. Especially since they’ve already got their man. Keen peeks into the corners of the packed interior, like she might find him hiding somewhere amongst all the technology. “Have you seen Reddington?”

 

Aram shakes his head. “He bolted as soon as we got the all clear. I’ve been in here.”

 

“Oh.” She realizes now that he’s done it again, swooped in and taken her out of what she was doing so completely that her head is filled with nothing else but him. She hasn’t even spoken with Reddington yet, and she’s already forgotten the circumstances of her night. The people who assisted their success, the things that should be conveyed. “Thanks for your help,” she tells Aram. Her smile feels almost natural.

 

She leaves him to what he’d been doing, the night air circling cool around her without the shield of the open van doors. Zipping up her leather jacket, Keen tries to pick Reddington out of the crowd milling about in the street. A lot of the neighborhood is outside now, robes and slippers edging the uniformed group. A breeze lifts the hair off her ears.

 

She tells herself she’s not going to look for him. She can’t keep her gaze from sweeping the street.

 

Her hands curl into fists in her pockets. _Damn him_. If he’d wanted to tell her something, he should have stuck around. He could have gone home for all she knows… wherever it is that he’s calling home these days. Her fingertips brush the flat screen of her phone. Dembe had been the one to call her to set up the meeting in the park. She’s not even sure she has Reddington’s current number.

 

Keen sees the officers leading their guy out the front door, Ressler doing his best to stay in the mix and direct things. Her eyes track their progress over the grass and into the waiting police cruiser. She decides she’s not going to hang around here like a lost puppy, her looming list of tasks not getting any shorter with standing in the street. Reddington knows how to reach her. Even when she doesn’t really want him to.

 

She’d arrived in her own car as part of her cover, but with most of the neighborhood’s occupants already at home for the night, she’d still had to park a far distance down the residential street. The noise of countless conversations blends into a murmur as she moves away from it. A general hum that spreads itself out through the air.

 

She’s most of the way down the block when she spots him. An unidentifiable lump in the dark, unrecognizable except for the twist in her stomach that’s insisting on something she already knows. As she gets closer she can see that he’s sitting on the sidewalk, his legs pulled up and his back against a car at the curb. His head rests on his bent knees; she doesn’t see his hat.

 

She can’t make out much of anything. By accident or design, he’s settled himself almost exactly mid-way between the two nearest streetlamps.

 

“Red?” Her voice comes out softer than she’d meant it to, tentative and a few notes too close to concerned. She reminds herself that she’s irritated with him. Ignores the tingling that’s working its way over the fine hairs on her arms.

 

Reddington’s head comes up, and Keen wonders if it’s the shadows that make his smile look so disconnected and lazy. “Lizzie…” he breathes out, her name rolling from his tongue in that way that so often makes her want to rail at him and fold herself into his arms at the same time. Promises of protection she doesn’t need. Tonight it just pisses her off, whatever he’s playing at only adding to the length of this stressful week.

 

Her voice reclaims some of the sharpness it was searching for. “What are you doing?”

 

“Stargazing,” he says, without missing a beat. He sniffs, tips his head. Stares back at her as if daring her to challenge this obvious untruth.

 

“Uh huh.” Despite his smile, despite her exhaustion and all this darkness, it’s clear this isn’t right. Even if he’d intended to wait for her, he wouldn’t have chosen to do it slumped against a parked car. “Tell me what’s going on. What do you want?”

 

Reddington coughs, a wet, ugly sound. She remembers he’d had a cough when they’d met a few days ago, a dry tickling thing that he’d brushed off with an excuse of having smoked too many cigars. It had been so easy to picture him lounging in a borrowed penthouse, wiling away stolen money and time; the image broke like a cheap jab through the reality of her busy week, and she’d been more than willing to push by it and move on to the business between them. She hasn’t talked to him since then.

 

He has to clear his throat before he answers her. “Merely interested in the outcome of your case.” The words come slowly, like he’s rationing air to make it to the end of the sentence. His smile looks forced now. Frozen.

“Your spies all have the night off?”

 

Even his laugh feels carefully crafted. She can’t tell if it’s simply the strange situation that’s making everything seem so off-balance. “I’m not a slave driver, Lizzie. Everyone deserv-” The coughing catches up again, stealing the rest of the sentence. She stands above him uselessly, waiting for it to end.

 

Reddington gradually gets some control of his breathing; a frown creases his moonlit forehead as he uses the car behind him to struggle to his feet. “Besides, it’s a _lovely_ night,” he continues, as if there’d been no interruption. “If a bit warm. I thought I’d go out for a stroll.”

 

Another breeze rustles her hair, like it’s been expecting this cue. The tip of her nose is a little numb. “Warm,” she repeats.

 

“Mmm.” It’s a vague noise of agreement. His face much closer to level with hers now, he chews at the inside of his cheek as he watches her. It looks on the surface like classic Reddington calm, that infuriating patience he wears wrapped like a cloak. But there’s enough light here for her to see the irregular twitch under his eye. And she notices he hasn’t yet moved away from the support of the car.

 

When it becomes obvious that she has no plans to further the conversation, Reddington tries again. “The case… successful?”

 

"You were there."

 

“So I was…”

 

His eyes slide closed without warning. He sways forward in slow motion.

 

His hand’s groping for a hold on the top of the car as she grabs his other arm, and Keen thanks whomever might be listening that the owners hadn’t bothered to install an alarm. Without the distance between them, she can feel the heat coming off of him. She swallows against the worry that’s lurched into her throat.

 

“Red?” She studies his profile, his head hanging low between his shoulders.

 

“You smell like papaya.” His voice is rumbling and drowsy. “I _adore_ papaya.”

 

“No. I don’t.” Her abrupt release of his arm is accidental, reflexive; the car holds him up on the other side. She glances back the way she came, spotting the nearest emergency vehicle. “I’m going to get a doctor to come look at you.”

 

He raises his head enough to peer at her. “Why, Lizzie – sometimes you do say the oddest things.” After a few moments he straightens up, running a hand over his short hair. “I can assure you there’s nothing wrong with me that a pot of green tea and a few hours of Vivaldi won’t cure.”

 

It’s almost convincing. Might be more so, if it didn’t sound like he was speaking through a throat full of gravel. “Right. And who doesn’t enjoy looking at the stars from the sidewalk. In the city.” She doesn’t like this, doesn’t know what to do. The concern she’s working hard to deny lends her words a sarcastic bite she doesn’t entirely mean. “I had no idea you were such an astronomer.”

 

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

 

It’s quiet, drained, and she’s not even sure it was meant to be heard. A wave of anger surges through her, hot and choking, riding the foam of her memory’s picture show. Her life turned upside down; the man behind it still a mystery. All she’s ever wanted was answers. To know about him.

 

“And whose fault is that?” Keen snaps out.

 

Reddington blinks at her, and she’d swear he looks confused. It’s an expression covered quickly, if it was really there at all. He drags a hand over his hair again, searching the ground at his feet; her eyes automatically follow his, looking for a hat that she knows isn’t here. She has the absurd thought that this uneven night might all make sense, if they can just find his fedora. The missing accessory - so much a part of her image of him – is only adding to her sense of the surreal with its absence.

 

She doesn’t recall seeing it in the van. She closes her mouth around an offer to go check.

 

“It’s late,” is what she says instead. “I need to get back.”

 

Reddington nods, his eyes returned to her face. “Of course. Don’t let me keep you.”

 

Neither of them move.

 

She hates the way he watches her, from behind that placid mask; it makes her itch to fill the silence. Like it’s some kind of test, like he’s waiting for her to prove that she already knows the questions. But a year of practice keeps her from squirming, and she looks back at him with an undecipherable expression of her own.

 

A minute. Five.

 

Raymond’s laugh cuts a weak approximation of itself through the silence. “If I’d known you wanted to spend the night gazing at one another, Lizzie, I would’ve suggested a charming restaurant I know in Sao Paulo. The candlelight would suit you. I –”

 

The deflection dissolves into another spectacular round of coughing. He produces a handkerchief from one of his pockets and her attention is caught by the anachronism; she supposes there’s really no reason for her to be surprised. The fit leaves him wheezing, bracing himself on the roof of the parked car. He looks wholly different from his usually composed self. It tugs at something in her, and Keen feels her lips pull into a frown.

 

She can see her car from here, six down and waiting patiently at the next corner. “Where’s Dembe?” she asks, glancing around as if the man might melt from the shadows.

 

“At home, I’d imagine.” Reddington leans into the car, dropping his head onto the arm resting on top of it.

 

Down the street, a couple of the police cruisers start their engines; she watches until they drive past, the red of their tail lights eventually disappearing around a corner. Reddington hasn’t moved. The group will begin breaking up soon, she knows – no need for all these people now that the excitement’s over – and she suspects he wouldn’t want to risk anyone seeing him like this. She guesses that’s why he’s over here, instead of back at the van.

 

She bites her lower lip, makes herself stop when she recognizes it. It’s unnerving to see him so unaware.

 

“Come on,” she says. It won’t hurt to do this for him. “I’ll give you a ride.”

 

There’s a muffled noise she has no translation for; his head lifts from its makeshift pillow. Even in this darkness, she’s able to catch the flicker over his features that tells her he’s moved too quickly. But his voice is steady; there’s even a hint of his habitual lightness. “No need.” His smile’s too tight. It echoes the lines around his eyes. “I’ll find a taxi.”

 

A rush of annoyance, one she welcomes. It sets her back onto more familiar footing. “Don’t be stupid. You can’t just wander the streets looking for a cab. Not like this.”

 

“Oooh, insulting _and_ bossy. If I didn’t know better, Lizzie, I’d think you were trying to be arousing…” The words slur drunkenly. Half lost in his sleeve as his forehead falls back onto his arm.

 

Keen’s grateful he can’t see the flush in her cold face; silently she curses him for it. She thinks again about getting an EMT. Maybe escaping to the Post Office, trying to get ahold of Dembe on the way. Tell him where to find Reddington. Let them deal with whatever this is.

 

“Come on,” she repeats instead.

 

A stretched out moment, long enough that she’s wondering if he actually heard her. But now Reddington shifts, slowly pushing himself off the car to stand away from it. His hand reaches to adjust a hat he’s not wearing, the motion cut short as he remembers. “No.” It’s hoarse, but final. Definite. “Goodnight, Lizzie.”

 

She scowls at his back as he walks away from her. Looks at her watch. _Ten after eleven._ Keen sighs. Pulling her keys from her pocket, she follows after him. She remains a few steps behind, but she’d be shocked if he doesn’t know she’s there. It doesn’t take long to get to her car, even at this crawling speed; when Reddington passes it, Keen hits the button on her keyring to unlock the doors.

 

He stops at the unexpected pop of the locks, and the look he throws over his shoulder at her can only be described as unamused. Keen has to fight with a grin; she schools her expression into the curves of wide-eyed innocence.

 

Reddington blinks at her, turns back to face forward. But he stays where he is. By the time she closes the short space between them, he’s staring listlessly at the sidewalk. “Red?” She isn’t really certain what she’s asking.

 

“Hmmm?” His eyes come up from the ground to flit across her face. He doesn’t look very focused.

 

"Nevermind. Sit down."

 

The rear door is nearer; she moves around him to open it. Reddington hesitates but gives in without comment, settling sideways into the leather of the back seat. His exhausted obedience sends a chill ringing through her. In the glow of the dome light he looks washed out, sickly; she wonders if the leather’s cool where he rests his temple against it. He’s got his eyes squeezed shut against this new brightness that surrounds him; she opens the front door to reach in and turn the light off. His face relaxes a little in the moonlight, but he doesn’t yet open his eyes.

 

Keen retrieves her phone from its pocket, stepping away toward the other end of the car. She sits on the front bumper, scrolls through her contacts. Mentally crossing her fingers, she hits the call button.

 

Dembe answers before the end of the second ring. “Agent Keen.”

 

He’s giving nothing away, but she doesn’t think she’s inventing the question hoping under his smooth greeting. “He’s with me,” she says.

 

Dembe exhales just a bit too loudly. “Where?”

 

She gives him the address of the house she’s parked in front of; he hangs up on her without saying anything else. She wishes she knew how long it was going to take him to get here. Keen walks back to the open car door, finding Reddington just as she left him. “I called Dembe,” she tells him, unsure if he’s actually listening. “He’ll be here soon.” She has no idea if it’s true.

 

His eyebrows pull together in a frown, a lopsided expression with half of his face pressed against the seat. “Luli dear,” he murmurs, “you worry too much.”

 

Her frown now reflects his, though he hasn’t opened his eyes to see it. “Elizabeth,” she says, a pointless correction. “Liz.”

 

“Lizzie…” It soothes his face into a sleepy smile. His eyes stay closed.

 

She tries to peek around him, thinking she may have a bottle of water in there somewhere. She can’t really see anything in the dimly lit interior. Keen leans against the car beside the open door, folding her arms over her chest. Someone drives by, leaving their scene; her gaze swings back in that direction. Still plenty of people loitering. A lone set of red and blues continues its splash across the night.

 

“She seems happy with him,” Reddington says to no one, the words wafting wispy up to her ears. Like she’s hearing his thoughts. “Sam can take care of her.”

 

It hits her in the center of her sternum; for a heartbeat, all of her muscles seize. Her father’s name immediately sets her eyes stinging. Her head snaps in Reddington’s direction.

 

She forces herself to take a breath.

 

They’re almost under a streetlamp here, but the angles of the car break the light strangely. As far as she can tell, he hasn’t moved. Perspiration glitters in his cropped hair.

 

Keen squats at his feet; Reddington doesn’t stir. His breathing is thick and ragged, and there are lines etched into his face that she doesn’t remember seeing before. “Tell me about Sam,” she whispers. It slips out cooing and luring and almost seductive, turning her stomach sour. But this could be her chance. She’s determined to get her answers.

 

His mouth twitches in and out of a smile. “Karaoke. Brussel sprouts.”

 

She wonders if he’s messing with her, keeping his eyes stubbornly closed. A shudder runs through him, his shoulders jerking with a series of poorly suppressed coughs. Even semi-conscious, he looks miserable. If it’s all just a game, he’s a better actor than she’s given him credit for.

 

She really doesn’t feel good about this, but it might be her only window. She’s tired of feeling like he’s pulling the strings on her life, doling out information only when it serves his purposes. “Sam,” she prompts again. “How did you know him?”

 

“My friend,” he mumbles. “A good man.”

 

Her dad’s face flashes up from her memory. The loss still feels far too fresh. She isn’t sure that will ever go away.

 

“Your friend. You _killed_ him.” She hadn’t meant to say that; Keen swears silently as his forehead cringes into a frown. “Your friend,” she repeats more agreeably, scrambling now to cover. “The one with the little girl.”

 

“I couldn’t take care of her.” It comes out as a sigh. “Sam… keep her safe.”

 

“Safe from what? Why?”

 

The frown deepens. His hair scratches against the leather with the minute shake of his head.

 

“What do you mean, _you_ couldn’t take care of her?” The pitch of her voice rises with the speed of her frustration. “Goddammit, Reddington…”

 

It takes her a second to realize his eyes are now open. Blinking at her bleary and bemused.

 

Reddington licks his lips, swallows. He’s mostly successful at lifting his head from where it rests on the back seat. “Lizzie?” For just a moment he looks utterly lost; it’s fear, not moonlight, that sparks in his feverishly bright eyes. It’s swept away instantly, but the foggy confusion lingers. She can actually see him searching his peripheral vision for clues.

 

“Liam Goodnight,” she fills in for him. “Number seventy-four.”

 

His shoulders relax almost unperceptively. She wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been looking.

 

Keen gets to her feet, cramping calves protesting as she straightens her legs. She studies the top of his head, tracing his hairline with her eyes. She’s tired now. The events of the night catching up as her adrenaline drains away. “Why’d you come, Red?” she asks finally. “You could’ve called.”

 

Reddington shakes his bowed head. Her gaze wanders over the slope of his bare neck, shadowed where it disappears into his collar. “Needed to see for myself,” he says to the sidewalk.

 

“See what?”

 

His head comes up, the streetlamp highlighting every crease on his face. He fixes her with that naked stare, the one that never fails to steal her breath away. For so many different reasons. “That you were safe.” As if it’s obvious.

 

She takes a couple of unintentional steps backward. Away from him.

 

Reddington tries to push himself out of the seat; he falls back into the leather with a grunt. A scowl twists his expression darkly, and he grumbles something under his breath.

 

“Just relax,” she tells him. “Dembe’s on his way.”

 

It’s the wrong thing to say – she’d swear he visibly bristles. “I’m not a child.” The petulant croak of his voice does nothing to support him in this. He coughs into the crook of his elbow, and she wonders where his handkerchief has gone. It’s a visceral noise, one that clogs her airways in empathy. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she shoves them into her pockets.

 

It takes too long for the coughing to end. Reddington slumps bonelessly against the backseat with a groan, sucking in air as if he’s forgotten what it tastes like. He looks unable to do much else.

 

She certainly didn’t expect that her night would turn into this. Another police car separates itself from the knot down the street. Keen resists the urge to pull out her phone and call Dembe back, to see how close he is.

 

“Talk to me, Lizzie...” It drifts up smothered and slow. His lips are barely moving, his eyes again closed. She finds she’s glad of this. She’s already seen more honest emotion than she’s wanted to in them tonight. “Tell me about your day.”

 

She bites back a sharp, automatic retort to this bizarre nonsequitur. “My day,” she eventually echoes. It comes out quieter, and much more kind.

 

“Mmm. Breakfast?”

 

“Cereal.” It’s not really a conscious choice, her decision to humor him. “Coffee.”

 

“Bananas,” Reddington mutters. “Potassium.”

 

He’s curled in on himself, as much as is possible while sitting mostly upright with his feet still on the pavement. Keen returns to her slouch against the side of the car, her eyes roaming aimlessly over the string of darkened houses. The iciness of the vehicle’s metal frame spreads immediately through the pockets of her jeans to her skin.

 

“I went for a run before work,” she says, unsure why she’s continuing with this. “Got in early. Then mostly paperwork. Until we got the call setting up this meet.” Reddington makes a noncommittal sound. “Business as usual, really, until an unstable criminal crashed the party and almost ruined our entire operation.”

 

“Lizzie, really.” It’s strained, muffled by the leather and the coat at his shoulder, but carefully affronted. “I’m _exceptionally_ stable. Considering.”

She’s virtually memorized his file by now; she knows a lot of what this means. Keen doesn’t say anything, and silence falls between them. She pulls up her jacket collar to block the rising wind, watching for a while the thinning crowd at the other end of the block. She’s worn out. She’s still got a lot of work to do.

 

_I couldn’t take care of her._

 

 _I_ , he’d said. As if he’d been there, been involved in the decision. She ducks her head, trying to get a glimpse of his face. She thinks he might be asleep.

 

“Were you?” Keen asks him, the words transparent and crystalizing in the cold around her head. “Were you there?”

 

Reddington doesn’t answer.

 

A shadow looms from her left to crash over the light between them. Keen spins around, her hand reaching for her gun. Freezes when she sees Dembe standing there. It seems he’s looking at her oddly, the flush of her paranoia coloring his expression something it might not actually be. She wonders what, if anything, he heard.

 

Dembe offers no greeting as pushes past her, not roughly, but determined. He crouches in front of Reddington, checking him over. It feels like it’s just the two of them now, out here in the night, and Keen isn’t sure that she’s not being intentionally ignored. She’d leave, but it’s her car.

 

Reddington mumbles something, but it’s blocked from her by the other man’s muscular bulk. Dembe nods. Straightens up to face her.

 

“I will take him home now,” he says.

 

There’s a car double parked just a few feet away. She chastises herself for being so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard him pull up. “Will he be okay?” It feels a false platitude under the weight of the look he’s still giving her.

 

“Raymond is not invincible,” Dembe replies steadily. “He sometimes forgets this.”

 

The fact that Reddington doesn’t protest must surely be a sign that he’s incapable of doing so. She can’t believe that he would simply sit there mutely, allowing this discussion above his head. “What’s he doing here?” She’s lost count of how many times she’s asked this, but somehow she feels she still doesn’t understand. _Why_ does this man feel so connected to her? What, in the end, does he want?

 

Dembe flinches, a tiny movement at the corner of his eye. She regrets the words – it was only a twitch, but it’s clear he feels responsible. “He… grew increasingly concerned about your well-being throughout the day. He left while I was preparing something for him to eat.”

 

There it is again. He’d come because he was worried about her.

 

“He snuck out.” She’s never asked for this worry from him. She has no idea where it springs from, what fine print is attached. She doesn’t want it.

 

Dembe shrugs. “Raymond does as he will. There is no need for him to inform me first.”

 

She recalls her meeting with Reddington in the park, remembers now how he’d left her there fairly abruptly. He’d walked away before she had – an anomaly in itself – and she’d sat there with a hand shielding her face from the sun, watching him return to his car. Dembe had been waiting, standing next to the hood; there was a conversation that she was much too far away to hear. Something about Reddington’s body language had scrabbled for her attention, though she couldn’t pin it down. A hint of annoyance in the way he’d held himself. Anger in the way he’d turned away.

 

“He seemed pretty upset with you the other day,” she says, a weak attempt to deflect. She hears it even as the words leave her mouth.

 

Dembe doesn’t blink. “He has not been himself.”

 

Her phone vibrates; it gives her an excuse to look away. A text from Ressler, asking where she is. She slips it back into her pocket without responding. She’s unsure how long she’ll be.

 

But Dembe’s already helping Reddington to his feet, a big hand wrapped supportive around his arm. Reddington’s head hangs limply; she can see Dembe’s grip tighten when he wavers. She’s surprised when he leans for a moment into the African, as if syphoning some of the other man’s strength. It’s always seemed to her that Reddington’s long since surrounded himself with a hard shell of solitude.

 

“Lizzie,” Reddington says thickly, without raising his head, “forgive me. Not… the best company, I’m afraid.”

 

She wants to get out of here, to curl up with a bottle and work her way through the maze of this night. Not go back to work. Not stand here in the street. “Go home,” she tells him without thinking. “Go to bed.”

 

From this angle, she can see the corner of his mouth reaching for a smile. “Ah. For want of a different context...”

 

It’s a blurred mumble, the words smudging over themselves, and it takes her tired brain too long just to decipher it. By the time she finds the link between his statement and hers, they’re already moving toward their car.

 

She really wants a drink.

 

Keen follows without intending to, watching from near the front door as Reddington settles into the back. She sees his head drop against the headrest as Dembe closes the door. No goodbye. He doesn’t even look at her.

 

Dembe, however, _is_ looking at her; he seems to have something to say. “Dembe?” Her eyebrow arcs with the question.

 

He reconsiders. Shakes his head. “It is not my business,” he says, as he turns away.

 

He starts around the car for the driver’s seat; she stops him with a hand on his elbow. Dembe’s eyes fall to her hand, flip back up to her face. Keen lets go of him. Her hand still hovering awkwardly between them.

 

“What?”

 

His eyes are locked onto her face now, and she wonders if he practices with Reddington. Keen feels her chin come up as she stares him down. _Tell me_ , she wants to demand, but she fears it will sound like too much of a pleading whine. Finally Dembe relents, a decision made. His eyes dip to the ground before returning to meet hers. “If Raymond is keeping something from you, it is for a reason. You are curious. Independent. Strong-willed. But perhaps it is best not to know.”

 

It may be the longest thing the man has ever said to her. It’s certainly the most personal. She feels a little stunned. Conflicting reactions battle for their dominance, leaving her mute and uncertain.

 

“Good night, Agent Keen,” Dembe says with a nod.

 

Too many thoughts threaten to spill from her. He gets into the car before she can let any of them out.

 

The town car pulls away, the streetlamps streaking gleaming slivers down its side. Left alone, Keen turns and walks back to her own car. The phone in her pocket vibrates again – Ressler getting impatient, no doubt. She slams the open back door, gets in the front. Tosses her phone into the passenger seat without bothering to glance at it.

 

The frustration of the night steals over her, creeping its way up her spine and down the length of her shoulders. She’s no closer to knowing anything. Reddington’s voice swirls around the inside of her head, fragments of incomplete sentences. Pieces to a puzzle without corners.

 

Keen rests her forehead against the steering wheel. Closes her eyes.

 

 

 

**end.**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I confess I am adamantly not a Lizzington shipper – to each their own, but for a lot of reasons it just doesn’t work for me. That being said, by trying to be true to the show I feel like I may have done okay by you guys here. I’m desperate to hear from everyone who reads this, but I’m especially curious to know what you OTP believers thought. There seem to be a lot of you. What’s the word? Will I be shunned from your fandom after this?


End file.
